Friday, September 2, 2011

Wanted to get it up today, but alas, a vodka fueled Vipers victory prevented that from happening.

The Vipers destroyed the Capitals, by the way. Ya'll should come out to the ballpark.

Anyways... the plan is to post what we had wanted to post on the weekend, ugh. Saturday, we guess.

We do want to say something about the Flames town hall thang, which we missed entirely (Go Vipers!). Feaster apparently said something to the effect that the second round pick that was traded to Buffalo was for a player, and not for the Sabres to take on Kotalik's salary.

This is retarded. And we are hearing that people at this little shindig actually bought the line. That illustrates the problems with the franchise right there.

There are fans of this team who enjoy eating bullshit. It makes no sense to us, but it was apparently on full display last night.

Let's go back and look at the trade. Regehr, Kotalik, and a second for Chris Butler and Paul Byron.

King/Feaster wants to peddle the fantasy that the trade was Regehr, Kotalik for Chris Butler, and then a seperate trade was us sending a second to Buffalo for Paul Byron. It is a fantasy because, for those of us who don't suck the organizations dick, this trade doesn't make any sense at all when you consider the return.

For those who enjoy eating the clubs bullshit, let us spell this one out for you: You cannot trade something for nothing under the new CBA. The trade was Regehr for Butler and Byron. The Flames were also told that Buffalo would be willing to take on Kotalik's salary, but not for nothing. Because the Flames can't trade Kotalik and a second round pick to Buffalo and get nothing back in return under the CBA, the trades were lumped together. This had the added benefit of allowing the club to continue peddling the fantasy we traded a second round pick for a player, and not to get rid of a player.

Honestly, if you do believe the trope that the club did indeed trade a second round pick for Byron, then we don't think you value picks properly. Paul Byron, 5"9, 170 pounds, has good numbers for the Q, but so does everyone. He then made the jump to the AHL. He took it by storm, boy: 124 Games Played, 40 goals, 46 assists, 86 points, -5, with 111 PIMS. In other words, the guy Feaster is implying can beat out one of Morrision, Backlund, Stajan, or Jokinen isn't very good at the AHL level. Furthermore, go look at his numbers last year. He is the second best centre on the team, for one, which isn't a great sign. A defenceman collected more points than Byron did, which again, isn't a great sign. He also managed to put up a paltry 123 shots, good for 7th best on his team, and he also shot 21.1%, which is not a number he can sustain in the AHL (the year before he shot 16%), let alone at the NHL level.

If we traded a second round pick for that guy, we humbly suggest we over payed. As a point of reference, the Ducks traded a second round pick for Cogliano, who may suck, but who also had four 82 game seasons in the NHL under his belt, and was 0.45 points per game (again, in NHL games). In other words, a second round pick should net your team a player who has shown an ability to play in the league, not a question mark.

(Again, just looking at this year, John-Michael Liles was also had for a second round pick. That is, a guy who has played over 500 NHL games.)

What is worse? That Feaster keeps peddling the fiction that the second round pick was not included in the trade as a way to get rid of Kotalik's salary, or the fact that he seems to be bragging about the fact that he traded a second round pick for what amounts to hope, sunshine, and unicorns?

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

CALGARY - In a summer in which it appeared Jay Feaster’s hands would be tied in so many ways, the Flames GM found some wiggle room in one of the most unlikely of places: Up the middle.

Stupid is starting in the first sentence. Let's be fair to start: at the very start of the offseason, it appeared to people only observing the surface that the Flames GM, Ken King, may have had his hands tied in regards to payroll flexibility entering the off-season. But then, you know what happened? The team traded Robyn Regehr, and also spent a 2nd round pick to get rid of Ales Kotalik's salary. You may have heard about it. Freed up over 7 million dollars in cap space.

Anything else happen? Actually, yeah, something else did happen. Ken King also happened to offer Brad Richards 64 million dollars over 9 years to play CENTRE (!!!!) for the Flames.

If you were paying attention, you might rewrite Diane Francis's boys sentence like:

In a summer in which Jay Feaster had already shed 7 million dollars in salary commitments, the Flames GM* found more cap savings at the one position he had already offered Brad Richards 7 million dollars a year to play, centre, ostensibly because there was a weakness at the centre position.

Wait, he isn't done...

For more than a decade, the Flames have struggled finding quality centremen to not only complement Jarome Iginla, but to round out the other three lines with capable pivots.

Interestingly enough, one of those guys the Flames 'struggled' to find was named Daymond Langkow.

(As an aside, can you believe we got Langkow for Gauthier and Saprykin? What a fucking steal. Like, holy shit.)

Yet, when asked what prompted the move that sent 34-year-old Daymond Langkow to Phoenix for Lee Stempniak Monday, Feaster cited the team’s depth where it matters most.

That, or the fact that CNQ has gone from a high of 51.90 in 2008 to trading today at 36.87. Ohhh burn! Salary dump smack beeeyoi!

Also, just as an aside, what is this shit about centre depth. Honestly. We have depth at centre? Two things: One, no we don't. Crosby, Malkin, and Staal is what depth at centre looks like. We don't have one centre on the team, let alone four of them. Two, can you ever have too much depth at centre? That's like saying your baseball team has too many pitchers. If you have depth at centre, you move them to the wings. Oh...that's right, Ken King and Feaster have continued the tradition of giving every god damned player on the roster a one way contract with a no trade.

Make no mistake — and with no disrespect to Langkow — the move makes sense on every possible level for the Flames as they save US$2.6 million in salary and nab a younger, more flexible player in the prime of his career.

Lee Stempniak may be younger, but he also comes with more suck. Stempniaks best year came in 2006-2007, where he recorded 52 points (27 goals). Langkow has had 52 or more points in seven seasons. But wait, that's a product of one being older than the other. Well, ok. Let's look at what Stempniak did last year, compared to Langkows last healthy year. For those too lazy to click, Langkow is one of the few on his team above water, while Stempniak is drowning. And while Stempniak does have tougher starts (ie more zone starts in the defensive zone), in the regular season, check out what they look like in the playoffs, and throughout Stempniaks career. Langkow is clearly the superior player.

Also, remember that 'saved 2.6 million dollars' part, because it's going to make another appearance later.

But it was the startling depth at centre that made the move the biggest of no-brainers.

Does anyone else see the irony of Francis writing 'the biggest of no-brainers', especially considering he admitted a few words before that he was 'startled' by the 'depth at centre' the Flames have had on their roster since training camp of last year?

Although Brendan Morrison worked well with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay on the top line last year, the club is going to give young Mikael Backlund every chance to start the season between the big boys as Morrison’s knee heals.

Second: This, ladies and gentlemen, is what 'depth at centre' looks like: A centre with a bad knee (that needs healing!), and a sophomore who may or may not be able to handle the job. Stajan and Jokinen are still in the house, though, so...fuck, sorry, we need to go grab some whiskey. Depth at centre sucks.

Olli Jokinen played a solid second-line role last year and David Moss has the full confidence of the coaching staff that he can continue to improve on his switch last season from wing to centre.

The Flames have so much depth at centre, point in fact, that they had to convert a winger into one. And that winger turned out to maybe be the best of the bunch.

Pricey Matt Stajan is very much a work in progress as the team hopes his conditioning and confidence improved over the summer so he can contribute in a third-line role, at best.

Look, we aren't Stajan fans either, but the teams 'best case' scenario for the cat isn't the third line, it's the first. We are killing this shit now folks: Matt Stajan has expectations on his shoulders. Don't allow yourselves or the media to let him off the hook from them with this third line shit.

Back to the deal, and it’s a beauty for Flames fans who wondered how on Earth Feaster was going to wriggle out of the fiscal handcuffs he inherited this summer.

You know, the Flames fans who had not heard of the Regehr and Kotalik and a second round pick for hope, sunshine, and cap space trade. Those ones. Or the ones who think that there are still worthy free agents out there to sign.

Feaster insists it was the Coyotes’ interest in Langkow that started the conversation — a chat that ended with the Flames asking Langkow to do what Robyn Regehr did earlier this summer: Waive his no-trade clause.

Gotta call bullshit on this one, folks. The organization offered big money and term to Brad Richards. If that wasn't marketing to the hoi polloi and the team was super serial about signing the cat, something else would have had to give. Something else being code for 'Langkow trade'.

Langkow did so most likely because of his history in Phoenix, allowing the Flames to sever ties with a $4.5 million contract that would have ended unceremoniously next spring.

Or maybe Langkow wanted to play for a playoff team?

Despite his stirring comeback from a neck injury late last season, the gritty leader is still a risky proposition given his age, his injury, his style of play and the year off — a gamble the Flames couldn’t afford to lose given his price tag.

Why couldn't they afford to lose it? We have 'depth at centre' on this team, we thought. So much so that we don't need Langkow in the lineup, and can trade him for a redundant part. Buildings full every night regardless of whether the team wins or losses. Tickets are priced relatively high. So why couldn't the Flames afford to lose this dice roll?

Honestly, Langkow is the better player. If he comes back and is healthy, that would be a huge plus for the teams ability to compete. If he doesn't, so what? We just played a season without him, and 'discovered' all this 'depth at centre', right? And the team had cleared up the cap space for this year already when it traded Regehr and Kotalik. Langkow's contract ends at the end of this year, so there is no issue there...

Seriously, why couldn't the team afford to lose this gamble? Just a really stupid thing to write, unless, of course, you waive pom poms for the team for a living.

With the 28-year-old Stempiak, you have a two-time 27-goal scorer who is in search of a new contract next year when his $1.9 million (cap-hit) deal runs out.

28 years old is young in real life, and it's young on the Flames, but it isn't young in hockey terms, not post lockout. Also, Stempniak has two 27 goal campaigns, sure, but one of them was 06-07 when he shot 16.3% (which, predictably, because he isn't a Hall of Famer, he has never been able to replicate), and the other one came in 09-10 when he scored 14 goals in 18 games, which is about the definition of fluke.

If you take the 06-07 and 09-10 campaigns out, Stempniak averages 73.5 games played and 15 goals.

Even Feaster said Monday what everyone in the hockey world already knew about Stempniak, which is that the versatile winger has always played his best hockey in contract years.

Is this the same Feaster who talks about adding character to the roster? Oh, that's lawyer speak for 'blowing smoke up your ass'? Ok then.

If he’s comfortable in Calgary, produces as a top-six forward and returns to form, chances are good he and the club will be able to come to terms moving forward.

Oh wow, fucking stupid. Francis, a sentence before, literally writes that Stempniak plays well in contract years, implying that the guy, once signed to a contract, takes his foot off the gas. Now he writes that if Stempniak has a good year, we should sign him to an extension?

Congratulations, Mr. Francis. You have to really work hard to be that retarded.

After all, thanks to moves like these, the Flames will certainly have the cap room.

Which we would have had regardless, because Langkow's contract was ending! Seriously, does Francis's stupid annoy the rest of you, or is it just us?

For those unable to read between the lines, this most certainly means Niklas Hagman has all but been written off as a Flame. Given his $3-million price tag, he’ll have to be one of the best goal scorers in camp to avoid being sent down to the minors, where he’d collect the final year of his deal outside of the Flames cap.

Yeah, we are going to send Hagman down. You know, to make room on the roster for Ivanans.

For reals, remember back at the beginning of this journey through the land of moron, that Diane Francis's rug rat was talking about how the Flames saved 2.6 million dollars with this move? Are we to now surmise that an organization who's latest moves have been to cut costs would now turn around and spend money it didn't have too on burying Hagman? Or should we assume that the money they saved by trading Langkow is going to be used not on salary, but on burying Hagman?

And a little more knit-picky, but if they don't want Hagman on the team, then why the hell didn't they make the Coyotes take on Hagman in this deal? We didn't need to trade Langkow, we could have played hardball here.

All told, Feaster now has more than $3 million to peruse waiver wires, trade options and even free agency from now until season’s end — a number he could double should Hagman be sent down.

Teemu Selanne, bitches.

Not a bad off-season for a fellow whose goal was to shed salary and get younger while also retaining key building blocks moving forward.

Oh, ok, we get. We thought the goal of a GM was make his team better, and by better we mean more competitive. Turns out we should judge it on the ability to shed salary, and how much younger you can make your team. Our bad.

Few could have guessed the team’s newly-perceived flood of talent up the middle would help the cause.

That's because few would describe Brendan Morrison, Olli Jokinen, Matt Stajan, and Mikael Backlund as 'depth at centre'. In fact, that could properly be described as 'lack of centre', as in, we don't see one centre in that group that affects the game in a noticeable fashion. Well, positively, that is.

Quick speculation: We are of two minds on this. If Langkow can't play, and we managed to get him off the roster before that made itself apparent, then it is probably a good trade, depending on what we get back. If he can play, then the Flames just traded a big trade deadline chip for who knows what.

Oh shit, looks like Stajan is still on the roster.

Anyways, we are not so sure if Feaster has a grasp on this 'trade players' thang. Generally, you try to keep your cool players and trade out the piece of shit players. Reggie and Langkow, cool players, find themselves on the outs, while pieces of shit like JBlowsover, and Matt 'Faboulos' Stajan remain on the roster. Weird.

We are not near drunk enough to offer the proper analysis on this move, especially considering we don't know what the fuck we got back. Come back tomorrow when we know. Fuck, and we wanted to run the Harvey the Hound drug expose tomorrow. Fuck! You! Ken/Jay! King/Feaster!